


sleepless in __________

by daydreamn019



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, MAG161 - Dwelling, Post-Apocalyptic, Sasha Lives AU, Sharing a Bed, Tim Lives AU, its loving jon hours!, theyre not vibing w the apocalypse either, tma s5 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23462197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daydreamn019/pseuds/daydreamn019
Summary: The world ends, the Eye opens, and the Archivist can only sit and witness it unfold, without pause, without rest, as ceaselessly as the Watcher above.But he does not have to witness it alone. And here, in a world where nothing can be trusted, maybe he can make an exception for comfort, and the three people he knows are willing to offer it.(Jon listens to the tapes to drown out the terror outside. But with Martin, Tim, and Sasha right next to him, perhaps there are better ways to quell the fear that rises in the world around them.)
Relationships: Jonathan Sims/Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood/Sasha James/Jonathan Sims/Tim Stoker, Sasha James/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 18
Kudos: 359





	sleepless in __________

**Author's Note:**

> tma s5 spoilers do NOT look if you havent watched up to mag161
> 
> .  
> .  
> .
> 
> im one of the cool kids who got to listen to ep161 early on wednesday and it immediately rekindled my writing motivation we love that! i almost cried with the birthday scene in the beginning because i missed tim and sasha That much so i thought...why not pretend theyre still alive :)
> 
> so miraculously i pulled 5k words out of my ass and wrote this...thing. ngl i find it difficult to write fluff for tma stuff that’s close to canon (not that this is proper fluff) because it feels...almost out of place? but i feel like i owed yall at least a lil bit of happiness after my last fic wrenched a few hearts out
> 
> hope u guys enjoy!

_Happy birthday, boss._

The fear is rolling over him in waves. 

_Happy—oh, are you okay?_

_No, I—christ, one sec—_

The hum of the tape makes something shudder inside him, restless, too foreign to be comfortable, too familiar to be safe. But...at least the voices are drowning out the other sounds, the creaking planks and howling wind and screaming people. 

_Sorry, sorry, Tim wanted to surprise you—_

_Snitch—_

The fear still comes, though, through the thick curtains covering the windows, through the beaming voices playing from the tape. It will always come. He can close his eyes and imagine another time, but the Beholding always has its open. And it is always watching its Archive. 

_Though, uh, honestly the bottle of wine was just fine._

_Pff, yeah, as a decoy—_

He should be searching. For a clue, a sign. Jonah Magnus sent him these tapes, piled oh-so-conveniently on the floor in front of him when he left his place by the windowsill for the first time in what seemed like days, to join Martin for tea. Maybe it was weeks. He can’t remember if it was even real tea, that time. 

There are footsteps outside the door. He pretends not to notice.

_Plus, it was kinda fun giving you a heart attack._

_Mm, I’m sure._

“Is he still listening to them?” he hears, or maybe Sees, through the thin walls. 

“What do you think he’s been doing for the past...well. Forever?”

_No, he’s way too jumpy as it is, we were worried he might damage himself—_

_Hey!_

Right. Clues. He doesn’t move an inch, hand resting on the cassette player and feeling it tremble under his fingers. There’s still a handful of tapes he hasn’t listened to yet, but he keeps coming back to this one, for some reason. Maybe he’s reminiscing, holding on to the shreds of the past, even before the Ceaseless Watcher descended upon the world from the words on his tongue.

That’s assuming that he still has the autonomy to feel that way, of course. That he still has the capacity to regret, to look back on a time when he was human and _feel_ like he still was. Maybe this is simply the Eye’s doing, drawing him to this tape, like a moth to a flame, in pursuit of knowledge. The truth. A lead in another one of Jonah Magnus’ games.

_—thank you anyway, this is all...very touching._

_We just wanted to do something to lighten the mood, you know?_

_Yes, I’m aware it’s been a...rough start._

The footsteps get closer, right outside the door.

_—we just thought you could use a chance to unwind._

_I suppose it couldn’t hurt—_

The two raps on the doorframe come at the exact same time as Elias’ cheerful voice, the syllables ingrained in his mind as they play for the possibly tenth, maybe a hundredth time—

_Knock knock._

“Jon?”

It takes more effort than Jon’s willing to admit to turn around and look up. Tim is standing in the doorway, which is...a surprise. How fitting.

“Tim,” Jon tries to say, but it comes out as a rasp. His throat feels dry from disuse, the name slowly crawling from his cracked lips. 

“You look like shit,” Tim informs him. He steps into the room, cautiously, probably still not over the time the floor turned out to be Not-Floor and caved away at his feet. It’s lucky that it only broke through the ground of the second story of the old inn, and that the walls didn’t come crashing down with it. “Ever heard of sleep, boss?”

“Can’t,” Jon answers automatically. The tape is still playing, now with Elias—Jonah’s voice in the conversation. He has to suppress a shudder, hearing the pleasantness in his tone. The blatant, _knowing_ condescension he hadn’t recognized, back then. “I don’t think I can, anymore.”

“Huh.” Tim walks over and reaches for the cassette player, pausing the tape. Jonah’s voice cuts off mid-sentence. “Can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t leave the room. Sounds like the Jon I’ve always known.” 

Jon swallows. The wind whistles loudly in the silence. “You don’t—”

“What, know you?” Tim ejects the tape, tossing it behind him. It hits the wall with a soft, barely discernible clatter. “I don’t think you get to tell me that, Jon.”

There’s bitterness, residual, in his tone, and the arguments Jon has welling up in his throat dissipate. He watches as Tim sweeps the rest of the tapes off the table with more force than necessary, letting them haphazardly drop to the ground. 

Jon hasn’t seen Tim in a while. Usually it was Martin who came into the room, at first to give him tea, but then to just talk to him, not that there was much to discuss besides the Change. Ever since he found the tapes, Martin hasn’t been by much. Probably for the better.

Now, without old voices in the background, the silence stretches, but it isn’t quiet. There is never _quiet_ in this world. The wind and the screams are so, so loud, and Jon doesn’t bother concealing his shudders as he sees it, in the back of his eyelids—the fear and death that surrounds them, crying out in agony. A fate that he condemned them to.

He looks at Tim again. He’s kicking tapes out of the way as he grabs a chair from the corner of the room, hauling it over to where Jon is sitting. Jon blinks. It takes some time for the words to form in his mind, to slink up his throat and onto his tongue. “Why are you here?”

Tim sets the chair down next to the table, opposite from Jon, and sits down, glancing at him. “What, the world ends and I can’t keep my boss company?”

Jon would laugh if he remembered how to. Instead, his heart just shudders against his ribcage. “Your... _boss_ was the one who ended the world.”

“Who, Elias?” Tim says, flippant. There’s a razor edge to his voice, and he leans forward to stare at Jon, intense. “Yeah, I agree. We should really go kick his ass, huh?”

Jon glances at the burn scars on his face, then looks away, avoiding his gaze. “He’s not Elias.”

Tim snorts, contemptuous. “Oh, _whatever._ Who cares what we call him? All that matters is that he deserves a few stab holes in his body. Or fifty.” He reaches over and snatches a tape out of Jon’s hand that he hadn’t even realized he was holding. Their hands brush slightly, and Jon starts, but the warmth quickly recedes. “Speaking of, why are you still listening to these things? He just sent them to mess with us.”

Jon looks at the tape. It’s the one with Gertrude’s message for her successor. Too late. _Years_ too late. “I know.” Jonah had found the tape, back then, but didn’t destroy it. The reason why is obvious. Jon exhales. “Did you know Gertrude wanted Sasha to be the next Head Archivist?”

“So what?” Tim frowns at the tape, but then seems to think better of it and tosses it aside without another glance. “Elias was going to pick you from the beginning. You think he was going to take recommendations from a person he planned on shooting?”

“But Sasha—”

“Would’ve been a better Head Archivist, yes,” Tim says, and there’s a sharpness in his voice that makes Jon shrink back slightly. “A better boss who, you know, wouldn’t stalk me right after the second-most traumatizing experience in my life.”

His voice tapers slightly at the end, and Jon watches his shoulders tense, then slowly relax. His hands uncurl from fists at his sides. Jon looks at the burn scars covering his face. He knows the patchy discoloration doesn’t stop there, spanning over the right side of his body in a constant reminder of what happened during the Unknowing. He feels something ache inside his chest, unraveling, creaking in tandem with the groaning floors and walls. “Tim, I’m sor—”

“Stop,” Tim says, sudden, and Jon does. “I told you not to—” He cuts himself off, making a noise of frustration. He’s silent for a moment, then continues, subdued, “Just don’t. We can’t change the past. And I didn’t come here to rehash this.”

“...right,” Jon says, hollow. He grips the arm of the chair, staring at Tim. “Right, o-of course. Then why did you—”

Something in the back of his mind thrums, a split-second before he hears a voice from the doorway.

“Guys?”

Jon turns. Sasha is standing there, which he already Knew, but for some reason she’s carrying a huge armful of white blankets, obscuring most of her face. They’re all bundled up in a mess, rather than folded neatly, and it looks like she grabbed them in a hurry. The floor creaks slightly as she steps into the room.

“A little help, here?” she asks, lifting her arms. Jon stares, bewildered, but Tim gets to his feet like there’s nothing out of the ordinary.

 _“Finally,”_ he says, his voice lightening almost immediately. He walks over to her. “What took you so long? And where’s Martin?”

“Still looking for pillows that don’t burst into spiders upon contact,” Sasha says as Tim takes some of the blankets from her. “These were the only clean sheets I could find.” She looks around the room, then huffs, shoving him. “You were supposed to take out the mattress!”

“I was?” Tim looks around, and Jon follows his gaze to the large unkempt bed in the room. Jon doesn’t think he’s slept in it even once. “Oh, oops—”

Sasha smacks him lightly. “You had one job, Tim Stoker. One job.”

“What,” Jon says, faintly, but they seem to hear him, turning to him in a unison that is mildly terrifying. Sasha’s face breaks into a smile, and Tim looks less pissed.

“Hey, Jon,” Sasha says. She strides over to him, dumping the blankets on top of him. Jon starts, clutching them so they don’t fall off his lap. “Hold these for a bit, yeah? Tim, give them to him so you can take out the damn mattress.”

“Christ, _fine.”_ Tim hands the blankets to Sasha, who gives them to Jon, though in a less haphazard fashion this time. Jon glances up, making brief eye contact with Tim, and there’s something in his gaze that, slowly, pries the ache away in his chest. At least for now.

Jon holds the blankets to his chest. They’re surprisingly soft. “What...are you doing?”

“What do you think?” Sasha says, flopping into the chair that Tim was sitting in. Jon hasn’t seen her in quite some time, as well. She sat with him when the tapes first appeared, helping him listen to them despite her vocal disapproval, but didn’t return after they got to the tape Gertrude mentioned her in. His eyes immediately drift to the intricate scars on the right side of her head, forming a hypnotic, snaking pattern. It’s been there ever since she fended off the Not-Them’s attempt to replace her. She covered it with bandages, before the Change, because of the attention it drew. Now, she doesn’t really bother, and Jon quickly looks away before the mesmerizing pattern pulls him in any further. 

“Don’t know,” he murmurs, in a breath, but as soon as the words leave his mouth, something brushes up against the outskirts of his mind, and he grabs on to it, instinctively, and Knows. He immediately sits up straight, staring past her to see Tim pulling the mattress off the bed. “What— _why?”_

“Why not?” Sasha says, casual. “It’s cold out there, so we should make it comfortable in here. Also, you’ve been moping ever since we found the tapes. Martin’s been worried.” She lowers her voice into a stage whisper. “And Tim, too.” 

Jon blinks. He looks back at her, and isn’t surprised to find her watching him intently. Her gaze is steady, soft around the edges, but it doesn’t scatter the heaviness in his chest. “But—” He stops, feeling something tingle in the periphery of his mind. He takes a deep breath. “M-Martin’s coming up the stairs.”

“Huh—oh.” Sasha glances at the door. A few seconds later, the pattering of footsteps can be heard, barely, over the wind. Jon turns to look just as Martin practically stumbles through the doorway, pillows chaotically piled up in his arms.

“I-I’m here!” Martin yelps, sounding a bit out of breath. He almost trips over a tape, but manages to catch himself. “Sorry it took me so long—”

Sasha immediately gets up, heading over to him. “Martin, slow _down.”_ Jon watches as she grabs some of the pillows, tossing them onto the mattress now lays on the ground.

Tim, who’s already sprawled on top of it, catches them and begins to arrange them in a neat line. “Alright. These should do.” He glances up. “Hey, Jon, come here.” 

Jon stares. “Why?”

“Well, you’re the one who has the blankets,” Martin says, and Jon realizes with a start that he does. Martin walks over to him, and he’s looking at him the same way Sasha did, but with more concern. He makes eye contact, his gaze asking a silent, _Are you alright?_

Jon can’t respond to that truthfully. He hands him the blankets. Martin gives them to Sasha, who starts to spread them out on the mattress in a much more orderly fashion than she collected them in. Jon watches her, still a little stunned, but the feeling is quickly giving way to the hollow numbness lodged in his chest. 

He doesn’t understand why they’re doing this. He doesn’t understand why they’re so casual, so buoyant even as screams can be heard from outside. They’re so natural that it’s unnatural, a scene unfolding in front of him like there’s nothing wrong, like they still lived in a world where they were coworkers fooling around in the Archives, blissfully ignorant. 

The back of Jon’s neck prickles. He glances up to see that they’re all looking at him. “What?”

“You read my mind already, Jon,” Sasha says. “You know what we’re doing. How are you going to sleep if you don’t get over here?”

Jon swallows. He does know. It doesn’t make sense. “Why? There’s no use. I-I _can’t_ sleep. I feel tired, sometimes, but it doesn’t feel the same.” 

“Well, sitting in a chair and listening to tapes isn’t going to help, is it,” Martin says. He approaches him, careful. “Jon, this isn’t healthy—”

Jon laughs, but there’s not enough air in his lungs to sustain it. _“Healthy?_ I—”

“Yes,” Martin shoots back, resolute. “Healthy. I don’t care that you’re an Avatar now, Jon. You still—you still _feel._ If you’re tired, you need to get some rest—”

“Can you even call it rest?” Jon interrupts. He sits up. “Sleep doesn’t look pleasant. I—last time, I couldn’t wake any of you.”

It must’ve been a long time ago, right after the Change. The frantic twitching, slurred murmuring, cries for help muffled by the haze of slumber. Jon tried everything to make it stop. It lasted for what seemed like a day before it did.

Looking at their faces, he knows he’s right. But none of them seem deterred.

“If you’re not gonna sleep, at least get your ass out of that chair,” Tim says, annoyed. “Take a goddamn break for once, boss.” He pats the pillow next to him. “Come here.”

With the three of them still staring him down, Jon feels his protests shriveling up in his throat. He gets up, his legs feeling weak. He doesn’t remember the last time he stood, God—time was already blurry before he started listening to the tapes non-stop. He slowly walks to the mattress, feeling self-conscious under their gazes.

Martin puts a steady hand on his shoulder, helping him sit, and Jon almost shivers from the warmth. Martin takes a seat next to him as Sasha hands him a pillow. Jon instinctively hugs it to his chest.

The soft mattress beneath them feels admittedly better than the hard, plastic chair. Jon feels his body ease slightly, but tenses again. He can’t let his guard down. He can’t—

“Jon,” Sasha says. She reaches over, lightly resting her fingers on his arm. The contact sends a tingle up his spine. “Relax.”

Jon doesn’t know how. Dread is coiled tight in his chest, wrapping around his body like chains. He lets go of the pillow, staring at the mattress. It’s clean, comfortable, but he doesn’t know if that even means anything. “I…” 

“We...just needed to do something,” Martin says softly. “It hurts, Jon. To see you wallowing like this.”

Jon feels an ache swell dully in his chest. He shakes his head. “Well, some of us weren’t able to cut ourselves off from the world before it en—”

 _“Jon,”_ Tim says, a warning, as Jon feels the warmth on his shoulder disappear. He glances up. Martin looks stricken, hand falling to his side as he looks away. Sasha has pulled back, too, staring at him, and Tim is looking at Jon with an expression he hasn’t seen in a while, lips pulled darkly downwards.

“That’s not fair,” Martin says quietly, after a moment. “Jon…” 

Guilt stretches tight against Jon’s ribcage, making him tremble. Maybe he can still feel like a human, after all. Or at least emulate those emotions, of fear and remorse and loss. “No. No, it’s not. I’m sorry. It just...it hurts. T-the terror outside—”

“We know,” Sasha says, and he shakes his head.

“But you don’t _see_ it, I—” A full-body shudder runs through him. “I can see it _all.”_ There, in the corners of his eyes, the blind spots of his vision—a man screaming in pain, a woman’s rotting corpse, a child crying for his parents. The agony he caused, when he opened the door. He condemned the whole world to this hell. _He_ is the reason—

“Jon,” Martin says, “it’s not your fault.”

Jon squeezes his eyes shut and feels his heart lurch in his chest. “Can we not—”

“It isn’t,” Sasha cuts in. “It’s Jonah’s. He did this and he’s sending you these tapes to gloat about his new world.” She picks up one of them, nearby, and casts it aside. “You shouldn’t listen to them.”

The thing in the back of Jon’s mind doesn’t like that. He stares at the tapes, a sense of helplessness rising up in his throat. “Then what else can I do here? We can’t leave, we can’t go outside—”

“We might have to,” Martin says, and Jon flinches. “We can’t stay here forever.”

The wind seems to crescendo with his words, sudden, the fear pulsing louder. Jon winces, hands lifting to his head. The static hums gleefully in his ears.

“Why not?” he manages to say. “I-it’s—yeah it’s boring, but it’s _quiet._ We don’t need to eat, or drink, so we don’t need to leave. We’re safe here.”

“I don’t feel safe,” Tim says. Sasha makes a vague noise of agreement. “And I’m sure the rest of the world isn’t doing too well.”

That’s true. That’s definitely true. Jon...should _care._ God, he was trying to save the world, before, as Georgie so eloquently put it. Trying to stop the Stranger’s ritual to keep humanity safe, leaving Tim scarred and seething, leaving Jon dead and then reborn into some _thing_ that wasn’t him. The savior act is all out the window, now. And there’s not enough energy inside him to do anything about it except feel guiltier and guiltier. 

“We can’t stay here,” Sasha says. “We need to find a way to fix this. To turn the world back.”

Jon tries to laugh. It comes out as a wheeze. “And if there isn’t one?”

“Then,” Tim says, cold, “we need to find Jonah Magnus. And kill him.”

Jon sucks in a breath. The exhale makes his whole body shudder. Tim is staring at the wall, hands curled into fists at his sides. Sasha and Martin don’t look at all daunted by the proposal—perhaps they discussed this, before, while he was hiding away in the room all by himself. He wouldn’t know. “Won’t...won’t we die?”

“Only one way to find out,” Tim says flatly. “We’re going to die anyway, probably. And regardless, he deserves to suffer.”

...he’s right. Before, when the world was normal, they hesitated. Now, what do they have to lose?

Jon looks up at Tim, who’s staring back. His gaze is intense, though it softens to a slight degree on him as he says, “But we can’t do any of those things while we’re still here.”

“I...” Jon swallows, dread swirling inside him. “But o-outside, it’s so—” He takes a deep breath, curling his arms around him. “It’s so... _loud.”_ God, they’re _dying,_ nearby and everywhere, screams of terror begging for mercy that won’t come. “I can see it. I can _feel_ it, the fear...it hurts. It won’t stop. If I go outside...” 

It’ll get worse. No barriers between him and the Beholding in the sky, as the waves of fear roll unbidden over him. He doesn’t think it could kill him; maybe it’s worse than it won’t. Maybe it’ll just fuel him, feed the Eye, _push_ the thing inside him and make him snap, once and for all. Make him truly a monster.

“I-I can’t,” he says, his voice breaking. “It’s...too much.”

He hears the blankets rustling next to him, where Martin is. “I’m sorry, Jon.” His voice is soft, wavering slightly. “That you’re feeling that.”

Jon shakes his head, pressing his fingers against his temple. There’s something bubbling up in his chest, whirling so dizzyingly that he doesn’t know what to say. “No, it’s—I love you, I just…” He feels something crack, inside him. “I need more time.”

Silence. The wind has quieted a little, but that just serves to make the distant screams even clearer, and the hum of static is still insistent in the back of his mind. He closes his eyes, trembling, and tries to push those images out of his head, the pain and suffering that looms over them. They keep coming. They always will.

“It’s alright,” Martin says, after a long moment. “It’s alright, Jon.”

“We can wait,” Sasha adds. “There’s not...much else to do, here.” 

“And we need to figure out a plan, anyway,” Tim says. Jon can feel his gaze on him, heavy, without even opening his eyes. “Something to combat whatever the hell is waiting outside for us.” 

“R-right.” Jon swallows. A plan. Is there anything they can do? “Right…” 

Another stretch of silence. Jon lowers his hands to his sides, trying to even his breathing. The wind has started up again, the ominous creaking getting louder around them. He doesn’t know how this building managed to hold. He doesn’t know how much longer they can wait for him. 

“Jon?” Martin asks, tentative, drawing his attention back to his voice. “Can I...”

“Huh?” Jon opens his eyes. Martin has a hand hovering over his shoulder, not too close, but his intent is clear in the soft hesitation in his eyes. Jon exhales, feeling his shoulders sag. “Oh—yeah. Yeah.”

Martin wraps an arm around him, gentle. Jon leans into him immediately, too drained to fight the desire for warmth. Martin brushes his fingers gently down his bicep, and the softness of his touch eases something inside him. Jon closes his eyes and tries to relax the tension coiled in his chest.

“What, no hugs and kisses all around?” Tim says drily, and Jon opens his eyes to stare at him, mildly incredulous. Tim is grinning at him, but there’s something sincere in his gaze that makes Jon’s breath catch slightly, and a retort fades from his tongue. Something aches inside him, not with loss or pain, but...relief. The feeling that he hasn’t lost everything, yet. 

“S-sure,” Jon murmurs, an invitation, and Tim’s smile widens. He quickly scooches over, accidentally jostling his leg as he presses his shoulder against his. Sasha follows, moving closer to sit cross-legged right in front of Jon. She reaches forward to rest her hand on his arm, lightly, and he can feel warmth from her fingertips. 

The exhaustion is setting in, again, the weary feeling that swells inside him and clouds his head, but won’t let him sleep. Usually he’d chase it away by listening to the tapes, letting the words wash over him as a distraction, but...they’re right. Jonah is gloating. And there are other ways to let his mind ease, to drift into something in between.

“Thank you,” Jon says, barely audible to his own ears—they hear him, nonetheless. Sasha smiles at him. Tim nudges his shoulder, and Martin squeezes his arm lightly.

“Of course,” Martin says. “We’re here for you.”

They are. They shouldn’t be. The words are on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows them down. Not now. The world outside is fighting to drag him back into despair, a hopelessness that wraps around him like a shroud, and it will. But _not now._

So he presses a little tighter against Tim’s side and nods, feeling the warmth against his skin. It’s hard, to just focus on that sensation, instead of the terrifying shudders that linger around him. He tries the best he can to ground himself in their presence. 

The stillness is broken when Sasha yawns, moving her hand away from his arm to cover her mouth. Tim grins, reaching over to nudge her slightly. “Time to sleep, huh?”

They seem to be in agreement. Tim moves away from Jon’s side to arrange the pillows. Martin squeezes Jon’s shoulder one more time before going to blow out the candles, leaving the room awash only with the dimmest red glow that filters through the curtains. Slowly, as everyone moves, the warmth begins to unravel.

Jon doesn’t let himself miss it. He curls his shoulders slightly. “I can’t.”

“Not with that attitude,” Tim retorts. He smoothes out the blankets into a vaguely-bed-like fashion and lifts the covers, gesturing. “You first.”

Jon wants to protest, but the fatigue shudders in the back of his head, and it does look appealing, to lie down and at least _try_ to rest. He climbs under the blankets, the mattress softly dipping under his weight. Martin lies down on his right, while Sasha shoves Tim aside and settles next to Jon on the left. They squabble a little before Tim seems to relinquish his position, letting her lay against Jon’s side. Jon tries not to revel in the way his heart lifts when he feels them next to him again. 

It’s a large mattress, but still a bit of a tight squeeze. They make it work, somehow, though from the sounds of Sasha’s complaints it sounds like Tim is lying almost on top of her. Jon is pressed right against Martin, and he can almost muster a smile, hearing the two argue as Martin tells them to quiet down. 

It drowns out the fear, the wind, the cries, like the tapes had. Perhaps a better alternative to dwelling on the past like that. 

“Guys,” Martin whispers, rather forceful, over Tim’s chuckling. “Christ, you two, the whole point is to let Jon sleep.”

Jon blinks. He almost forgot about that, somehow. “I...still think I can’t.”

“Just close your eyes,” Martin says, gentle. Jon turns his head slightly to face him. Martin’s eyes are earnest, his gaze soft as he looks at him. “Relax. We’re here.” 

Tim makes a noise of affirmation, and Jon feels Sasha brush her hand briefly on his arm. He inhales slowly. Back then, when Gertrude Robinson was found dead, he couldn’t trust them. Then it was Jurgen Leitner, and they couldn’t trust him. Now, they are perhaps the _only_ people he can trust, and he doesn’t know if he deserves the way they seem to trust him back. He doesn’t know a lot of things, for an Avatar of the Entity that wants to know it all. But maybe that’s a good sign.

They don’t say anything else, as silence blankets them. Jon feels them shifting slightly around him, adjusting, getting comfortable. But soon those small movements cease as well. 

He curls up against Martin’s warmth, closing his eyes like they told him to. Of course he still sees it, in his peripheral vision—the agony that surrounds them, the world that cracks open and bleeds. The wind still howls, among terrified screams, and the room seems to shake slightly from time to time from the ferocity of it, the sheer numbers of suffering. 

But the Eye won’t hurt him, here. And he won’t let it hurt them. 

Jon doesn’t sleep, in the end, staring into darkness as he hears Sasha’s soft muffled snores, watches the rise and fall of Tim’s chest, feels Martin’s gentle breaths against his cheek. He stays alert for signs of restlessness and fear, the nightmares that accompany their slumber, the trembling terror of dark dreams, but there are none. Just steady breathing, an illusion of quiet and calm. It’s...peaceful, for them.

For Jon, though, he still feels it all. The fear drags over him in pulses, weaving around his chest and making something ache in his ribcage. It washes over him with glee, beating in tandem with his heart, a sickening rhythm. The world bleeds and howls and quivers under the weight of the Eye, and the Archivist records all of it. 

Yet at the same time, he can hear Martin’s heartbeat, slow and even. Sasha’s hair tickles his neck, and Tim’s arm, slung over her side, rests on his shoulder. There are crevices of warmth, fleeting among the jaded haze in his mind, the fearful static that buzzes on the outskirts. But still there. Still here.

Jon closes his eyes, taking a deep, shuddery breath, and drinks it all in.

  
  
  


(They tell him, later, that it’s the first time they’ve had a well-rested sleep since the Change. It will be the only well-rested sleep they get in a long, long while. But the temporal comfort, among stopped clocks and screaming winds, cannot be taken away. 

Jon clings to it. The world wails and shudders with fear that inevitably finds its way into his head. The sky balefully stares down at them, gaze roaming over the blackened and rotten earth. Somewhere, elsewhere, Jonah Magnus is laughing, watching them struggle as he savors the creation he guided, the victory that rises over bones and blood and terror.

So Jon trusts it—the warmth that seeps into his skin, the feelings that curl in his chest, where the Ceaseless Watcher has not yet pierced him. And he trusts them, the way they trust him, even after what he’s done and who he’s become. 

In times like these, what else can humans do?)

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: @daydreamno019


End file.
